A Dream of Despair - II

Night, dark as pitch; thick as the sand between my toes; pressing in on me from every side until it drove the very air from my lungs. The more I looked, the less I saw. Somewhere... somewhere in the distance was the crackle of dying embers.

I walked. The sand was strangely tinted, strangely wet. The crackling embers beckoned to me, a haven, but I was stricken by a sight midway. A form on the sand, which nudged and fidgeted. Suddenly I longed for the haven no more.

As I moved towards the form, the sand under my feet was wet. And as I curled my toes in protest, I felt a shiver run up my legs, through my spine, piercing deep into my very heart and tears rolled down my cheeks.

It was the form of a man. A dead man. A beheaded man. And it was his blood that soaked the desert sand. For bare moments, I stood and stared, rooted to the spot in sheer shock. He was not merely dead; he had not merely been killed. It didn't seem possible that it could have been recent, for the deformities were beyond imagination, to an extent that only nature could be cruel enough to inflict over a long long period of time.

And upon the chest of the dead man lay a child. A living breathing child with the face of an angel and bedraggled hair. Two tiny fists grabbed at what was left of the man's neck. Tear stains sparkled on her cheek. A tiny parched tongue lolled out of a pair of dry lips. She was fast asleep. And in her sleep she kept saying... Now I can sleep, baba. Now that I have found you, I can be at rest.

Sometimes you just KNOW

ghuturghu... ghuturghu.. patakh!!!

[sigh]

I knew I should have removed those diyas from the window sill ages ago. I knew those pigeons weren't as harmless as they seem. I just knew something was going to break today.

A Dream of Despair

Nothing but the scorching sun screaming down upon my head. So strong it was blinding. Desert sand as far as the eye could see. The gentle rise and fall of dunes, now here, now there, flowing so effortlessly and with such stealth that before my very eyes, a new world was taking shape. If I was not lost already, I would be now.

The wind whipped my bedraggled hair about my face; my head was uncovered. I felt for my scarf, but it was not there. With the howl of the merciless desert wind came the cry of a child. Somewhere in this godforsaken place, there was a child. The desperate plea in the child's cry pulled me in every direction, there was no telling where the sound came from.

Suddenly a figure became visible in the distance. I was moving closer to it. There were more people. Women. Children. Somewhere in the distance there was an impression of a camp. More sound. Cries of sheer pain, tearing through to my very heart. Howls of despair so deep I could feel my bones judder. I was face to face with the figure. It was a woman. She looked deep into my eyes and I knew who she was. All her life, her hopes and dreams, her loves and loyalties, her every word and action, her whole life flowed through me like the blood in my veins. In that moment, I was her.

And then the moment was over. She was gone. Back to her people. Back to the remnants of those souls. For remnants they were; hollow eyes, withered limbs, starved, parched, homeless. But above all, they were hopeless. And with justification, for I knew now, where they were headed. I was moving away again, and as I reached out my hand in protest, the tear drops on my arm told me that I had been crying.

And in that moment, I was in despair. I had seen that life and the look in those eyes which had said to me as plain as words, that there was nothing I could do here. There was nothing anyone could do.